There’s only one certainty while watching Nicolette Krebitz’s enchanting, unpredictable A E I O U – A Quick Alphabet of Love, and that’s that all will be made right in the end. The reason for such faith comes not just from the affection in which she wraps her characters but the whole mise-en-scène, designed as a love-letter to cinema that would never allow disappointment to break its spell. Krebitz posits her film as a companion to her polarizing Wild, in which a woman detached from society falls in love with a wolf, but while A E I O U’s theme of an older actress and her unlikely relationship with a high schooler thumbs its nose at convention, it sees past bourgeois notions of transgression to locate something not just liberating, but joyful. Fruitfully pairing the brittle precision conveyed by established thespian Sophie Rois with the screen-conquering charm of newcomer Milan Herms, the film wears its New Wave influences with a contemporary sensibility that should see it snapped up by buyers.
Anna Móth (Rois) isn’t quite on the margins of social behavior in the way of Wild’s Ania, but a prickly single woman in her late 50s whose career is largely behind her isn’t exactly seen as part of the beau monde. She’s unapologetically independent (even if she doesn’t pay her rent on time) and unafraid of defending herself, such as during a hilarious yet believable TV interview from an unspecified earlier time in which she calls out the host and another guest (Amédée Till and a well-disguised Moritz Bleibtrau) for their objectifying snideness. At the same time Anna is also neurotic and vulnerable: “Whenever a household appliance breaks down, I’m filled with existential dread” she admits to her best friend/downstairs neighbor/indulgent landlord Michel (Udo Kier, fabulous).
She’s understandably discombobulated by a nighttime mugging and looking for a doctor’s sympathy when she’s roped into tutoring a troubled teenager from foster care who needs diction and comportment lessons if he’s to appear in the school play. When Adrian (Herms) walks in her door, they recognize each other immediately: he’s the guy who stole her handbag, though neither mentions it and they get on with the work at hand, which is considerable. Their physical proximity turns electric as he soaks in her lessons in the safe space of her apartment, where the clean lines, neutral colors and plain walls create a kind of haven existing outside time and the world’s boundaries.
His triumph in the play is also a crushing anticlimax: technically they don’t need each other anymore, but that’s precisely when they realize just how much their souls hunger for one another. The discovery comes following a superbly written (and delivered) monologue in which Anna tells Adrian that he needs to stop believing the bull about the world automatically belonging to his demographic (young, white, male): not everyone can make it, so just get over it. The speech is the trigger needed to break the last wall between them and they embark upon a passionate relationship that sees her taking him to Nice, where his kleptomania gets them in trouble.
Towards the film’s start we hear Anna, whose intelligent voiceover accompanies much of the action, discuss vowels: A is where everything starts, from the “Ah” when a baby is born to the “Ah” of sexual release. The sound also connects to the sigh of satisfaction from watching a movie so deliciously clever and so positively transgressive. It’s hard to believe we’re still in a world where Harold and Maude type relationships cause such discomfort – how else to explain the unremittingly sneering treatment of the Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron marriage, though neither of them were exactly underage when they met? Krebitz has no time for such foolery, and while not ignoring the unusual circumstances of the relationship she depicts, she consciously pushes it aside to celebrate the coupling of two people outside the norms of accepted behavior who thrillingly find each other.
The director’s influences, tonally as well as stylistically, can be clearly traced to filmmakers of the 1970s, specifically Fassbinder and Truffaut, including how she steers the performances. Rois, a seasoned theater actor best known on-screen for Tom Tykwer’s 3, uses precise gestures and mannerisms that seem to somehow carry a hidden flourish, as if a spark is all that’s needed to unlock her protective rigidity. By contrast Herms’ Adrian starts being too loose, too mumbly and unformed, needing Anna’s solidity before he can come into his own. The chemistry between the two is terrific, their big lovemaking scene cathartic without being overly enflamed. Krebitz says she wrote Kier’s role to express her love for the actor, and indeed the affection shows, on both sides.
Each element of the film’s construction feels carefully considered and yet at no time is it coldly constructed. Reinhold Vorschneider’s meticulous camerawork sets the characters within interior spaces to first heighten the sense of isolation and then their togetherness, the cold, white German light changing to Provençal warmth when they reach the Côte d’Azur. Production designer Sylvester Koziolek and costume designer Tabassom Charaf work marvelously together, utilizing simple lines and earth tones that have a kind of retro timelessness with inflections of Fassbinder. And how wonderful not to see a mobile phone anywhere. Nina Simone’s version of “Here Comes the Sun,” heard during the lessons, is the perfect accompaniment when the ice is slowly melting.
Director: Nicolette Krebitz
Screenplay: Nicolette Krebitz
Cast: Sophie Rois, Udo Kier, Milan Herms, Nicolas Bridet, Lilith Stangenberg, Adrien Lamade, Oskar Melzer, Laura Tonke, Bernhard Schütz, Nicolas Wackerbarth, Peter Jordan, Moritz Bleibtreu, Amédée Till
Producers: Janine Jackowski, Jonas Dornbach, Maren Ade
Co-producers: Jean-Christophe Reymond, Peter Hartwig
Executive producer: Ben von Dobeneck
Cinematography: Reinhold Vorschneider
Production design: Sylvester Koziolek
Costume design: Tabassom Charaf
Editing: Bettina Böhler
Music consultant: Martin Hossbach
Sound: Uve Haußig, Luise Hofmann
Production companies: Komplizen Film (Germany), Kazak Productions (France), kineo Filmproduktion (Germany), SWR (Germany), Arte (France).
World sales: The Match Factory
Venue: Berlinale (competition)
In German, French, English
104 minutes
